Hey, it’s Spring Training for bloggers, too.
Dune: Part Two premieres in movie theaters this weekend and is projected to be a blockbuster. If you only believe what the data says, then it looks to be a fantastic sequel to the 2021 film starring Timothée Chalamet and Oakland’s own, Zendaya. Rather than wonder if the San Francisco Giants will add Blake Snell and/or Matt Chapman during Spring Training, let’s wonder which Giant will see it the most times during its theatrical run.
Why should you care about this? Because Dune: Part Two is going to be a huge hit. Perhaps a cultural touchstone for a generation! Christopher Nolan compared it to The Empire Strikes Back and others have compared it to The Dark Knight — and lest you think little of the people who love those particular movies, Major League Baseball players are in the same age cohort that embraced them at the time of their release!
On top of that, the novel Dune has inspired filmmakers for many, many years, and seeing how its influenced science fiction films — especially Star Wars — it stands to reason that a well-executed version of the novel (with all due respect to the David Lynch version) will join the pantheon with the greats. Giants players are better than we’ll ever be at Baseball, but they’re like us in some ways, too. Some like nerd s***, sure, but they also like participating in popular culture, too — taking in a good movie at the multiplex, eating popcorn, etc. Will they have time to see it during Spring Training? Of course. Rest is a part of a good weight training program.
So, let’s just make some uneducated guesses. I’m going to stick with players on the 40-man roster, even though I had a whole bit about Bryan Price being a secret Dune-head who connects the book with his youth in the Bay Area, but this time around he’s so invested he converts to Islam — but again, just a bit. And there it is — I just wrote it for you, so let’s move on!
First, we need to determine who is likely to see Dune: Part Two. Theoretically, every player could see it — after all, it’s just a movie — but it’s also 2 hours, 46 minutes and so it might not be a practical time off activity for some busy athletes. Then there are players with kids and all of my child-having friends have indicated that seeing a movie in a theater is a virtual impossibility; so, it seems reasonable to exclude most of them (Jorge Soler, Ryan Walker, etc.). Barring a team-building exercise, I’ve narrowed it down to these five:
Jung Hoo Lee
Dune: Part One grossed $14 million in South Korea back in 2021, making it the fifth-highest grossing international market. Even if he got dragged to see it by his friends — it was a very popular film! — he’ll be back for the next part.
Tristan Beck
He just flew back to San Francisco to have his hand checked out. Depending on how long he’s back in the city, he has a chance to see the film on a reference IMAX screen at the AMC Metreon 16. That screen, plus the AMC Lincoln Square in New York, plus the IMAX screen at Los Angeles’s Universal CityWalk are the only three commercial IMAX screens in the US that show the film 100% as intended — although the IMAX screen in Tempe Arizona is as big as these and probably just as good (it just doesn’t have Christopher Nolan’s stamp of approval — yet). Even if Beck isn’t a cinephile, I have to put him on this list because he’s theoretically right next to the Metreon!
Austin Slater
I think Stanford’s Austin Slater would find the story of Dune and the tale of a boy who would be king and the dangers of a Chosen One narrative to be just intellectual enough to take the plunge. I feel like he’d appreciate good filmmaking, too.
David Villar
We know from this video that he’s a Harry Potter fan, and while Dune is not a world of wizards like that children’s series, it does have a vaguely magical quality to it; but also, Zendaya, Florence Pugh, and Anya Taylor-Joy are in it, so, you know, let’s not overthink it.
Sean Hjelle
Maybe I should’ve just made this post about imagining how Sean Hjelle will react to Dune: Part Two, because he’s the most vocal nerd on the Giants as far as I can tell, given everything he says in that video with David Villar (see link above). He considers The Lord of the Rings the greatest fiction ever written. He invested time in Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series. He’s going to Dune: Part Two. Possibly with Villar!
Now, which of these five will see it the most times in a theater? I’m banking on one of them having a transformative experience. The Dark Knight came out 15 1⁄2 years ago when most of these players were in the range of 10-16 years old. They either didn’t see it at the time or saw it at home, if they saw it at all, and so that movie became the floor. I suspect this movie has the power to ensorcell moviegoers like the previous references, but also maybe like Mad Max: Fury Road — just a movie that blows your mind. If not the Giants, then some team will cheer, “The spice must flow!” during a rally.
At the end of the day, most of these guys don’t have much time to go to the movies during Spring Training and so the idea that they’d go back for repeat viewings sounds unlikely. I considered Alex Cobb or Robbie Ray — the rehabbing guys — as possibilities, but I have a prejudice against pitchers in that I don’t think they have much interest in art. To take the Giants out of the question, for instance, who’s more likely to see Dune: Part Two at all: Max Scherzer or Joey Votto? Pitchers use data and instinct to control the world while hitters must use their imaginations to survive. Broadly speaking, different mindsets.
And yet, I think Sean Hjelle will be the guy who winds up blocking the view of the people behind him in multiple screenings of Dune: Part Two at the Arizona multiplexes this spring. The world of Dune is nearly as expansive as Middle Earth’s and he’s so long and tall that it might just make sense for his teammates to nickname him Shai-Hulud.